Shut the World Away from Here
by free-pirate
Summary: Dean doesn't have any scars after Hell. At least, not visible ones, and not the ones that Sam remembers. Mild Wincest. Spoilers for Season 4.


**A/N:**_ Uploading some old December stuff. Reviewers own my soul.  
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**Disclaimer:**_ Not mine._

_~*~  
_

Dean doesn't have any scars after Hell. At least, not visible ones, and not the ones that Sam remembers. The small, faint lines over the backs of his hands, the broad slashes on his torso, and the pale peppered places across his chest, rock salt blast from his own gun. Each one had its own story, and together they created the road map for everywhere they'd been, everything they'd killed.

Now, they're gone and it feels like something's missing. For every scar that marred Dean's body, Sam has one. It's a twisted testament to all the ways they're screwed up and all the ways they're perfectly right, but all that's left are the obscene raised edges of Castiel's hand seared onto Dean's soul.

And, of course, the invisible ones.

They hide in the shadows, flit around in the darkness of Dean's eyes. Sam can see right through the walls and defense mechanisms his brother throws up on instinct; he's had too much practice at it, no matter how long he hasn't had to try. They're intriguing in ways they shouldn't be, and he wants to ask but he isn't sure he's prepared for the answer. Knows he probably isn't, and the haunted look Dean thinks he's hiding every time they broach the subject is enough to keep him from asking.

~*~

He shies away from the barest of touches now, from the casual brush of shoulders as they walk down a sidewalk to the press of them when they have to move single-file to accommodate someone coming the other way. He twitches away as soon as possible, passes off the jerky movement with silent, transparent excuses. For the first few weeks, Sam's so happy to have his brother back that he doesn't notice.

After Dean finds out about how he's been using his powers, it's easy to pass it off as disgust. It's not a secret that they make his skin crawl; in fact, he's made that abundantly clear in the past. But the broken look that occupies Dean's eyes the moment after he moves away, when he's open and vulnerable and doesn't know it – it hints at something larger. Something worse.

If it was Sam's choice, he'd rather have Dean disgusted with him then have to be made aware of whatever put that look there.

There's a small, masochistic part of him that nags, eats him up inside, because as much as he doesn't want the images of Dean's time in Hell to taunt him when he closes his eyes, he wants to know. Needs to know. He wants to understand that dark look.

Maybe by discovering how his brother was broken in the first place, he can put him back together. But he doesn't ask, doesn't press, and doesn't add salt to the wounds festering under Dean's skin.

~*~

It drives Sam crazy to have Dean so close and not be able to touch.

It takes nearly all of his self-control not to lean over the small space between them in the car, kiss and lick and bite the worried set of his mouth away. He has to keep his mind on staying seated when his brother vacates the bathroom, steam billowing out from behind the just-opened door. Dean's completely dressed, but there are beads of water sticking to his neck, and Sam resolutely thinks of anything but backing him up against the wall and licking them away.

They're in Montana, driving around aimlessly. Dean may be trying to see as much of the country as they can before… well, before the end. He knows they can't win this. It's just another diner, standard back-road joint with the standard diner menu, but Sam gets back to the car before Dean does. When his brother climbs into the driver's seat his t-shirt rides up incrementally, exposes a thin strip of perfect skin, and he has to sit on his hands to resist the urge to reach up and touch. Feel the hardness of toned muscle underneath, flexing and fluttering as he draws his fingertips across it.

"You okay, Sammy?" Dean asks, eyebrow raising a fraction of an inch as he catches the look on Sam's face. He wets his lips and nods, tearing his gaze away and gluing it to the countryside rolling past the windows.

When he finally breaks, they're in the Nevada desert and it's stifling hot everywhere. The sun overhead bakes the earth, bakes the metal and leather and makes Dean hiss when he puts his hands on the wheel. The back of Sam's neck sticks to the seat where he's slumped down, knees jammed up under the glove box, and he winces as he sits up, tries to rub the prickly feeling away.

Dean's worrying his bottom lip, hands sinking again to the wheel to try to get them used to the heated leather. Sam looks over, lax from the lazy, roiling warmth, and before he can stop himself he's got his brother's lip between his own teeth, running his tongue over the plump, chapped expanse of it over and over until it's wet. Nibbles at it softly, like nothing's changed.

There's a helpless, scared sound hanging in the air, and it takes a moment for him to realize that it's coming from Dean.

He catches himself long moments too late, pulls back and breathes for a moment. Opens his eyes cautiously. His brother's own eyes are wide, scared, like he doesn't know who Sam is, mouth open and breathing in shallow pants of air.

_Fuck_.

"God, Dean, I didn't—"

But Dean just shakes his head, closes his eyes and draws a deep, shuddering breath. He gets it under control slowly, and by the time he can breathe normally again, Sam's been gone for five minutes.

~*~

They don't talk about it and Sam makes sure he keeps at least a foot between them at all times.

The look in Dean's eyes haunts him when he closes his own, broken and pleading and hurt, and he wants to fix it but he can honestly say he has no idea how. It's a week before they get past one-syllable conversations again, two before Dean's back to cracking jokes and teasing him. Everything is almost back to the way it was before, with the awkward silences and silent no-touching rules, except for the heavy pressure weighing on Sam's conscience.

Three weeks after the fact, Sam jolts awake to muffled pleading noises from the other bed. It takes a moment for the implication to get through the sleep-haze, but as soon as it does he's on his feet. Dean's thrashing, sheets twisted around his legs and arms, restricting his movement as he cries out.

Sam doesn't know what to do, takes all of two seconds to deliberate before he sits on the edge of the bed, grabs his brother's shoulder and shakes. He doesn't realize he's crying until the moisture dries, uncomfortable on his cheeks, and Dean's got the knife from under his pillow clutched in his hand.

He's lashing out with it, attempted half-arcs that Sam intersects. Dean's shouting, wordless and hoarse, and Sam raises his voice over his brother's, tries to get through to him.

Suddenly, they have no choice. They've got to talk about it.

Dean does settle, eventually, but he refuses to look Sam in the eye. There's no right way to approach a situation like this. So he goes for broke, because he's pretty sure he can handle anything Dean throws at him. Fairly sure.

"I, uh. I heard it helps to talk—"

"The fuck do you know, Sam?" Dean's looking down at the awful hotel blanket, hands shaking where they're laying, open and useless, next to the knife. There's no heat in the words, but his voice is raspy, rough. "It was Hell. There's never been anybody come back from that except demons, so how the fuck can you know it'll help to talk about it?"

The air conditioner kicks on. Pass of a car on the road outside, light running across the ceiling and the far wall. Tick of the clock is almost painfully loud.

"I don't, Dean," Sam sighs, looks up at the ceiling and down at the floor, avoiding Dean's gaze as much as Dean's avoiding his. "I don't. But neither do you."

"I know I don't want to talk about it."

Sam shifts, bed creaking beneath him, and reaches out. His fingertips brush the back of Dean's hand, soft, but his brother jerks away.

"We've got to talk about it," he leans closer, not close enough to freak Dean out. And yeah, it's an underhanded blow, but it's the only way he's going to talk. "I need you to talk about it. I hate how you can't stand me touching you. We can make it better, you've just… got to talk."

Dean makes a choked-off sound as Sam's long fingers close around his other wrist, loose, not restraining, just there. The weight against his skin is unpleasant, and he resists the urge to twitch away, endures the brush of skin to skin with his eyes still shut.

"I can't," he says after a moment. "No bullshit there. If I could, I would, but I can't." He opens his eyes, meets Sam's, and he's closer than he remembers being, closer than is totally necessary or comfortable. Just… no, there's no way. He can't even allow himself to think about it.

But Sam leans forward, shifts closer, and rests his cheek against Dean's. Gentle, just the soft brush of stubble to scratchy stubble, and Dean can't stop the shudder that works its way up his spine. He knows he used to enjoy this (even though he'd never admit it), but he can't remember what it felt like before.

Now, the press of Sam's cheek against his, the way it's warming his face, reminds him of fire, only fire. He remembers all too vividly how it feels to have his skin ripped off, burned off, how strung out on pain he was and not able to die, to fall into unconsciousness. He remembers how it felt when they touched him, burned holes into his skin where their fingers pressed, so different from the gentle touches he knows he should remember.

If Hell were fair, it'd be impossible to remember everything they'd done. If it were anything like Earth, the edges would have blurred and faded and he should only be able to remember the pain. But it's not, and everything, everything, is completely clear. He can still smell the brimstone and burning flesh. He'd never going to be able to stop smelling it.

The breath puffing against his ear is warm, and it brings him back for a second.

Dean's shaking, as much as he tries to suppress it. As much as he doesn't want Sam to think he's weak. It should seem like a stupid thing to be thinking, now; it's possible that he's been through the worst four months – _forty years_ – of anyone else on Earth. Weakness has nothing to do with it at this point.

"C'mon, Dean," Sam breathes against his ear, and an entirely different shudder starts at the top of his spine and runs downward. "Need to let go."

"Can't," he answers, and he doesn't recognize his own voice. "Sammy, I—" _Don't want you to know. Don't know the words. Don't know if there are words. Don't want to make you hurt anymore. _

He's stuck between a rock and a hard place. He isn't sure which one of those Sam is, but he's applying pressure, wants him to talk about it. The words die in his throat even as they run though his mind on loop. He—can't.

"What did they do to you?" Sam asks, words spoken to the soft spot right behind Dean's ear. It's the voice he uses when they're on a case, interrogating a woman who's been through something bad. His good-cop voice.

Dean clears his throat, tilts his head back and tries not to feel. The little shocks that the press of his brother's lips produce in him are _wrong_, all wrong. "I wish," he rasps, turning his head slightly away from Sam. "I wish he'd taken all the memories away."

He should clarify. Memories of Hell, he means, not anything else. He doesn't get a chance to gauge Sam's reaction, but maybe he knows. Sam always knew, and sometimes he'd ask questions just to see if he was right, or to see if Dean knew. The tricky part was when the times their answers didn't match up started to outnumber the ones where they did.

"What did they do?" It's firmer, more demanding, and Sam nips at the spot he's worrying. The scrape of teeth makes him jump, makes him want to scramble away, but the heat of Sam's body and the weight of him keeps him stationary. Not restricting, just there.

Just there.

The sound he makes is painful, a half-sob. "Everything they could. Everything you can imagine and a lot of things you can't. A lot of the things it's not possible to imagine unless you've been there."

Sam stills for a moment, pulls back and catches his gaze. He's crying, he knows. His brother's face swims before him, blurry at the edges, and the heat and wet leak down onto his cheeks.

"God."

Dean has to snort at that, a corner of his mouth curling upwards wryly. "No." Sam's nose brushes his cheek as he kisses away the saline, tries to smooth the hurt over with something gentle and unassuming.

He wishes it would work.

"I don't want to remember," he adds.

"I wish you didn't have to forget at all. I wish you'd never gone to Hell in the first place." And that stings, a little. But Dean's known for a while now.

His skin crawls, feels like there's something moving around beneath it, like it's on too tight. But no matter how much he wants to pull away, he's got to… they've got to get over this. So he turns his face into Sam's neck, brings his hands up to tangle in his hair, and holds on as Sam sucks a mark into his neck.

It's almost rough, and at the same time not rough enough. Dean despises it a little. But Sam wants, and he's not been very good to his brother lately. He can stand this. He can stand this if it kills him. Besides, he's been through Hell, right? This should be nothing.


End file.
